


Far From Home

by SplitDemonIdentity



Category: The Strokes
Genre: Boarding School, Gen, M/M, Slightly Disregards Actual Personal History
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 01:08:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1799893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SplitDemonIdentity/pseuds/SplitDemonIdentity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Julian and Albert get sent of to Institut Le Rosey in the same year; a relationship blossoms that neither of them were expecting to gain from going off to boarding school in another country.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On Board

Julian slumped into his seat on the airplane staring straight ahead. He didn't want to go to Switzerland and he didn't think it was fair that he had to go. Yeah he had problems, what 14 year old didn't? He didn't think they were bad enough to send him to Switzerland. So what if he drank a little too much; it wasn’t like that was all that unique a problem among teenagers.

He pulled his bag in closer to him as the plane set off furious that he was getting sent away and determined that he would be kicked out of this school as fast as he could be. He wouldn’t even bother unpacking when he got in, he wasn’t going to be there any longer than a week he'd make them kick him out.

Julian groaned as the plane started setting off, this was the last thing he wanted to do and he wasn’t thrilled to be stuck in this stupid metal tube for the next 10 hours either. He waved off the overly polite old woman he was sitting to and slammed his headphones over his ears and letting the music wash over him as he watched everything get smaller as he was forcibly flown away from it all.

This was going to suck

* * *

 

Albert was excited, he couldn’t believe that his parents trusted him enough to send him off to school on a different continent all by himself without anyone he knew going with him. He smiled and stared out the window at his parents waving to them as he bounced in his seat ready for take-off and ready to start his new “grown-up” life.

He couldn’t wait to get to his new school he knew it was going to be the coolest thing ever and he would have the best stories to tell to his friends when he got home, because they weren’t going to do ANYTHING that was anywhere close to being as cool as what he was doing, he knew that he would be running this school in a few weeks.

Albert beamed as the plane started to take off waving one last time to his parents as he flew off to his new school. To him it didn’t even matter how long the flight was going to take although it was apparently supposed to take practically forever judging by the arrival time on his ticket. He gushed about what he was doing to the businessman sitting next to him not even noticing that he was annoying the older man with his incessant chatter due to how important this trip was to him.

It was going to be great.


	2. Glances In The Library

Albert quickly fell into a pattern while being surprised by how difficult it was at this new school.

  
He still wasn't the coolest thing on the campus like he thought he would be, and in fact he didn't have much of a friend pool to pull from at all. So he had switched his focus from being the most popular student to having the best grades in the school and using those to get into a position of popularity.

  
It was as he sat in a library working on an essay that he looked up he noticed an older boy sitting sullen in the corner glaring at the thick book in his lap. It occurred to him that the older boy was different from most of the students at the school, he seemed less preppy and less like he had his whole life planned out to the maximum approval of his parents than the other students. For lack of a better word he seemed cool, cooler than anyone else Albert had seen in his entire life leading up to that moment.

  
The older boy suddenly looked up and glared straight at Albert like he was challenging him for daring to look at him. It was then that Albert realized he had been staring for quite a while coz this older boy had captured his imagination so thoroughly, and quickly blushed looking back down at his essay receding into himself in shame like he was an omega who had stupidly challenged the alpha in his distraction and didn’t want to be kicked out of the pack.

  
Albert watched him from the corner of his eye though for the rest of the night until the two of them were kicked out of the library and ended up walking to their separate dormitories Albert trailing the older boy as long as possible, and learning from the window in the dormitory hall that the older boy’s dormitory wasn’t that far away from his.  
Heading up to his room he quietly crept in working to not disturb his sleeping roommate as he decided now was as good a time as any to go to sleep as well.

  
Sleep didn’t come, the older boy had captured his imagination. He was so different than what Albert was used to and he couldn’t stop thinking of him as he tossed and turned all night. He wanted to know everything about this boy despite never having even spoken to him and their one bit of interaction being a death glare coz Albert had stared a little bit too long at him.

  
When Albert stumbled down to breakfast the next morning in awful shape from the restless previous night, he was jolted awake when he realized the older boy from the previous night was sitting by himself maybe a couple yards away from Albert on the opposite side --quite obviously willingly apart from the rest of the students sitting in clumps down the long tables-- eating his food slowly and never looking up to see what was going on around him but still finishing up his food long before everyone else and stalking out of the dining hall.

  
Albert couldn’t help noticing the older boy from there on out, he saw him everywhere, always by himself, never showing an emotion beyond perhaps disgruntlement, his head usually down as he read books or worked on something acting like he was waiting out a prison sentence. Albert was even beginning to learn some habits of the older boy the most intriguing one to Albert being that he went to the mail office every day despite leaving with nothing most days.

  
Though Albert had been fortunate enough to be in the mail office one day sending a letter to his parents when the older boy had stalked in and been handed a letter that was neatly addressed to him without saying a word but he had smiled upon seeing it immediately turning on his heel and seeming to run from the office.


	3. Confrontation

Albert sat under a tree on the grounds reading his text book and scribbling away in a notebook as he worked on his latest essay knowing that it was to be the deciding factor in whether or not he would finally top in one of his classes so he was determined that it would be the best thing he had ever written in his life.

He suddenly shivered despite the sunny day and it dawned on him he was being watched not just colder than he was used to no matter how true it was.  He looked around nervously and suddenly saw a pair of uniformed legs directly beside him.

“Why do you keep watching me?  It’s fucking creepy.” It was the older boy having finally come to confront Albert.

“What are you talking about?” Albert asked swallowing.

“Don’t play stupid.  Ever since that night in the library you’ve been watching me all over campus.  Why are you doing it?” He asked.

“I--I don’t actually know.” Albert said finally dropping his eyes back to his work and biting his lip, “I just have been.  I don’t know I guess I think you’re cool or something.  And I don’t know maybe I think we could be friends, I mean you don’t seem to have any friends here and I definitely don’t have any either.”

“I don’t need to be your friend.  I already have one and he’s the only one I need.” He said crossing his arms sullen again.

“Is he the one you’re always checking the mail office for?” Albert asked his curiosity over the older boy’s strangest habit finally getting to him.

“See you know I do that!  Dude that just proves that you’re watching and it’s fucking creepy.” He said, “Also besides your creepy habits which make me not want to tell you anything, my mail is 100% mine and none of your business.  Just cut it out ok dude?  Just ignore me like everyone else in this school ok?”  The older boy turned on his heel and stormed off leaving Albert feeling strangely empty and hurt by the whole interaction he expected the older boy to be cool not a total asshole.

Not that it was the first time he was this wrong about a person to his own detriment.  He was learning that he was very good at being wrong about people.  

He hadn’t even learned the older boy’s name and he was getting pretty sick of the older boy just being some nameless face that he couldn’t ignore in the crowd.  At the very least a name would be a nice thing to know just so he could stop thinking of him as “the older boy”.

For weeks Albert had tried to listen to the older boy and stop watching him but he couldn’t.  He was drawn to the older boy but he had to keep his distance coz he didn’t want the older boy to tell the other people at school how “fucking creepy” Albert was and warn them away from him.

Maybe he’d just force the older boy to like him.  The dude seemed crazy lonely anyway, he couldn’t figure why they wouldn’t want to share their loneliness with each other and make it sting a little less.  It was always nice to know that there was someone who felt the same as you, Albert had always figured.


	4. Comfort

Resolve made to make the older boy like him, Albert had to force himself to face the older boy and leave his comfort zone and do more than just watch him from afar where he was safe. A decision line that was much scarier due to the older boy having told him to essentially fuck off and die in a hole. Or at least that was what it had felt like.

His machinations were deliberate though and he suspected the older boy had noticed.

One morning the older boy was once more sitting by himself at the end of the table with ample space all around, and Albert chose to sit directly across from him smiling at him before starting to eat as well repeating the process for every other meal of the day, hiding how awful the older boy’s withering glares --glares which were administered every time he sat down-- felt, hinging on the charm he knew he had plenty of to make the older boy warm up to him.

As he got physically closer to the older boy week by week he noticed he wasn’t the only one interested in the older boy and there in fact seemed to be a net of girls of varying ages surrounding him despite the distance between the girls’ and boys’ campuses that just seemed to get closer to him every time either one looked up. Honestly the presence of these girls was more than enough to put Albert on the edge, their ever tightening circles foretold nothing but malice.

They reminded him alarmingly of the vultures he had watched when he and his parents had made a trip into Death Valley and he wondered when they would start to pick at the older boy. Maybe they were waiting for someone or something else to come along first and break him down more so they’d have an easier time getting at him. At least they smelled better than the vultures had, not that it was a hard feat.

Mere weeks in though everything came to a screeching halt. Albert had finally gotten back his paper that was supposed to make him the top student in his class in and it was an unequivocal disaster he had failed so badly at the paper that he had dropped tens of rankings in his class and now wasn’t even in the top 50 students of his class.

Upon seeing his grade Albert had torn out of the room leaving behind everything and dropping his paper in a crumpled pile behind him as he ran to hide backstage at the outdoor theatre crying as he clung to himself sniffling. He wasn’t the most popular kid at school, he couldn’t even make one friend, and now it had proved that he wasn’t the smartest either. Everyone at home was right, he was a screw up who couldn’t do anything right and him being here was just a waste of everyone’s time.

He was so lost in self pity that he hadn’t heard the scuff of shoes against the stone steps until a bag was placed next to him followed shortly by a person.

"What happened?” A familiar voice that he couldn’t place asked.

“What do you mean?” Albert asked not looking over instead resuming to stare out over the lake seeing nothing.

“I saw you run out of your classroom crying and tearing some paper, but when I went into your class to grab your things for you I couldn’t figure out what would have caused that. I’m just glad I was able to find you. You seemed like you might never come back from the look on your face.”

"I don’t want to go back.” Albert grumbled, “And stop acting like you care about me. No one cares about me here.”

"What happened?” The other voice asked taking one of Albert’s hands off his arm and squeezing it.

“When I came to this school I wanted to be the most popular person here but I don’t have a single friend, my roommate doesn’t even much care for me so I’ll never be the most popular person here so then I decided I could be the smartest person in my grade and make friends like that. But then I had to take that stupid essay test and I got it back today and I failed it badly so not only am I not the smartest person in my class but I dropped 53 places and now I’m nothing. I’m just a screw-up like everyone back home thought.” Albert blubbered through his ceaseless tears finally looking over to see his company stunned to see the older boy sitting next to him holding Albert’s hand in both of his larger ones.

The older boy let go shortly though making Albert mourn the warmth of the older boy’s hands on his only to pull out a wad of paper from his uniform pocket and a lighter.

"I know what we can do about this test of yours Albert.” He said flicking the lighter on and setting the pages alight placing them on a lower step as they burned away.

“How did you know my name?” Albert asked staring at the flames while they consumed his exam.

"It was written on your paper.” The older boy said, “Albert Louis Hammond Jr. sort of a mouthful isn’t it?”

Albert chuckled weakly, “I guess so.”

"It could be worse.” The older boy said smiling at Albert, “My best friend has a unpronounceable last name. He’s been having to correct teachers on how to pronounce it since kindergarten which doesn’t work so well when you have an accent like he does. Your names are at least understandable and normalish you just have a lot of them.”

Albert smiled at the older boy feeling much better all of a sudden, a feeling that was only amplified by the older boy standing up and offering Albert his hand to help him up and didn’t relinquish the grip until they got back to the doors of the school and had to go their separate ways.

"WAIT!” Albert shouted as the older boy left him and started to vanish down the hall, “What’s your name you never told me?” 

"Julian!” The older boy shouted back, “I’ll see you at dinner Albert.” He smiled and really vanished around the corner that time. 


End file.
